Comments on: Sykes — Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots …

By: Pater Familias » ONE ARISTOCRACY REPLACING ANOTHER.

Pater Familias » ONE ARISTOCRACY REPLACING ANOTHER. — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 01:52:02 +0000

[...] ARISTOCRACY REPLACING ANOTHER. Shannon Love’s comment on this post I linked to yesterday is brilliantly illuminating. I suggest you read the whole comment, but here [...]

By: Pater Familias » “IDEAS MOVED. PEOPLE LESS SO.”

Pater Familias » “IDEAS MOVED. PEOPLE LESS SO.” — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 22:05:47 +0000

[...] which review a new book by Bryan Sykes, SAXONS, VIKINGS, and CELTS: THE GENETIC ROOTS. This first post (by James McCormick) has a five word summary of the findings: “Ideas moved. People less [...]

By: Jay Manifold

Jay Manifold — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 16:47:35 +0000

For further reading, with apologies for a bit of self-promotion: earlier review of SV&C on ChicagoBoyz is here. Earlier review of Before the Dawn on ChicagoBoyz is here.

By: JohnSal

JohnSal — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:54:41 +0000

A summary of Sykes’ work is presented in the book by Douglas Wade entitled “Before the Dawn.” It’s worth reading first if you are a layman interested in the genetic and archaeological research into human origin. Although you should skip the thoroughly ludicrous part on the origin of religion. He presents a couple of interesting snippet’s of information from Sykes’ work. He decided to trace the Y-chromosome of the family name Sykes and found that 50 percent (the others arising from nonpaternity drift) could be traced back to one male Sykes from the 13th century. From this he deduces that most of the British surnames can be traced back to one individual in a similar manner. Also, Sykes looked at the DNA commonality among the British and other Europeans and found that the closest match was with the Basques of Spain. He speculates that in the early years after the last Ice Age, the Celts that reinhabited Britain split from a base population living in Spain, leaving the Basques behind. Anyway, fascinating stuff for anyone interested in where we came from and how we got here.

By: Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Morning Highlights

Pseudo-Polymath » Blog Archive » Morning Highlights — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:36:00 +0000

[...] The roots of the Isles at Chicago Boyz. [...]

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:48:53 +0000

In summary, after statistical analysis of roughly 50,000 DNA samples in Great Britain and Ireland, Sykes discovered deep continuity of the maternal lines in the isles, undisrupted by the Romans, Celts, Picts, and Saxons we know from written or archaeological history.

For some reason, modern readers of history seem to assume that the invasion and domination of group A by group B means that a significant percentage of group B migrated to the lands of group A. I think that in the era of nation states, we unconsciously identify ruling caste with greater population. Yet, throughout history, most “migrations” or “conquest” simply meant the replacement of one small ruling sub-population with another. For example, we say that Alexander the Great conquered the whole of the Eastern Mediterranean world but he actually displaced less than 1% of the total population of the regions he conquered.

Until the industrial age, most people lived under the rule of a military caste comprised of ethnic group different from that of the majority of the populations and whose cultural origins occurred a significant (as the horse rides) distance away. Empires came and went but the vast majority of the populations simply stayed in place and went on with their lives. (This also has the effect of making the aristocracy of any particular area the “new blood” in town.)

Cultural mimicry flows down the status hierarchy so that as one ruling culture displaced another, the general culture begin to look like the culture of the latest conquering group. From the perspective of history based on cultural artifacts or written language it looks like one group of people physically replaced another.

In reality, its the same actors with different costumes.

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:39:31 +0000

“…amazing continuity.”

So when Brittania ruled the waves, its people had the same genes as when they were blue-painted savages on a remote island. Not too surprising.

Does the rest of Western Europe show this level of continuity? I would suspect it does, but maybe not. Maybe the Volkerwanderung really did churn people up more. The very stability of Britain is, in that case, an indication of the islandhood = stability = capital accumulation (physical and cultural and legal and social capital)that underlies Prof. Macfarlane’s analysis, e.g. in Savage Wars of Peace.